Glint
by Dollfayce
Summary: They really do love each other, for a given definition of love. ToddxLovett.
1. Chapter 1

GLINT

Rain, rain, glinting silver like razors against the windowpane, and all that visceral delicious wrong red to clean up all over again. And again and again and again.

If it didn't put people off, to say the least, he probably wouldn't bother at all. But he had to keep on. If not, then what? He preferred not to consider the ifs or thens of life. That sort of thinking interfered with the briefest set of basic mechanics that his new life was. Todd couldn't manage much more than that.

Always always always that alarm going off in his head. She's dead. She's gone. Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no. Loud and awful, monstrous bright like glinting razors. With all that, who had time to eat? Or sleep? Or anything?

Just those constant cries. No no no no. Just that constant pain, and nothing he could do about it.

Except.

He could kill. He could share his pain, give what he couldn't have. That wonderful brief catharsis of crimson.

Oh Lucy, he would think. Oh Johanna. My doves, my darlings. This was never supposed to happen. But life—

And he would kill again. Not that anything helped for more than a moment.

And not that Todd was completely unaware of anything outside himself. It was just…difficult. In fact, without Mrs. Lovett, he would have starved to death or given himself away long ago. He knew this, he did.

"Oh, you great useless thing," she'd say as she helped him, brusquely, softly, sometimes even in exasperation, but always with affection. She brought him food. She made sure he slept. She even provided him with caution, and prudence. And she would have provided him with so much more, he knew this too. But all _that_ was just one more distraction Todd didn't fancy confronting. Like breakfast.

Yet, ruined as he was, he couldn't stop himself from humoring her. Just a little. Just enough to keep her happy, anyways. He told himself it was practicality. They were both using each other for something. At least—mostly—they were honest about it. Which is so much more than most couples can say about themselves.

What Todd didn't consider was the danger of routine. How when you're used to something, you forget it—you're lulled into a sense of security. And things progress. They'll escalate. Allowing himself to be touched could lead to him touching her—at first perfunctorily, then maybe affectionately. Scoffing at Mrs. Lovett's plans for any future led to maybe not scoffing as much—which she could take as encouragement, which only led to more. Maybe sometimes he would dance. Smile, maybe.

But never for a moment could he drown out all those red red claxon screams in the back of his head.

No matter if—

The danger of routine. Of getting used to something. That one day, the first time all that slashing wasn't enough, and his razors didn't seem to release a goddamn _thing._

Who knows how long he stood there, dangerously drenched in all that blood, completely at a loss for why he couldn't breathe properly still. Minutes? Hours? Maybe even seconds. The blood was still wet, though, when he found himself wandering down the stairs, although it was very dark. As far as he was concerned, it was the only course of action. If he had been in a better state of mind, Todd might have been concerned about someone seeing him, of noticing the blood. But he could only blindly follow. That's all he seemed to be good for, nowadays.

He knew where Mrs. Lovett slept. God knows he had been subtly and not so subtly invited there enough times. Todd found himself all of a sudden standing helplessly at her doorway. It was probably blind instinct, he reflected later. Any other time he had any kind of need, she would fill it best she could. So that now the night had gotten to him and he couldn't say what was wrong, he came to her.

Mrs. Lovett had been in bed for the night, which was completely unacceptable. He needed her. So he thought nothing of approaching her bed and roughly shaking her arm to awaken her.

The woman stirred, moaned, before opening her eyes. And crying out. This was also unacceptable. Todd pressed a cold hand to her mouth, to silence her, until she figured out it was only him. As if that was comforting.

"Mr. Todd!" she cried, after she was free to speak. "I never! And what is it you're doing, swooping around at night like a great owl!"

"I…" he said, but couldn't seem to finish.

Her lips, even now smeared with rouge, turned down. "Hush now, Mister Tee," she said, and reached out for his arms to pull him down to her. He allowed her. "What's the matter, dearie? Something wrong? Do tell me." She tried to rest his head on her shoulder, only to pull back in surprise, her small hands smeared with blood. "What's all this, then? No time to wash up? Has something happened?"

Todd swallowed. "No," he said. "Nothing…out the ordinary. I don't think. Everything's fine."

Her round eyes darkened for only the briefest of moments. "Well, that's all right, I suppose." Already he was forgiven. He wanted to laugh. Or at least he knew that it should be an amusing situation. He hadn't laughed in so long.

They were silent for a moment, which Todd could only attribute to the unorthodox situation. Mrs. Lovett usually had so much to say all the time. And she either didn't notice or didn't care that he never contributed to the conversation at all. Never cared to, or cared at all.

Mrs. Lovett. So affectionate. So foolish. So…different than what he remembered. Different from her. She was wan and dark, instead of healthy and fair. She was strong, and voluptuous, rather than charmingly frail.

She was _close_. While the other one was so impossibly far, this one stayed close. _No, no, no, no_, the alarms still went off. Oh, this was all wrong and there was nothing he could do about it.

The woman must have noticed him tensing, for she pulled back. "Mister Todd?" He didn't answer, as usual, so she sighed. "Let's get you off to bed," she said, rising.

"_No," _he said, and pulled her back, dark eyes meeting black. He could see her try to gauge the situation, see if this was good or bad. Not that it mattered. She would do anything for him, he knew. She would give him anything. Maybe even her life…

"I find myself still restless," he said flatly, as his hand wandered up to her white throat. "Even now, still unhappy, still unable to find my peace." His hand was clasped firmly around her neck now. Her eyes were wide, and she twitched as if to move away. As if she could. He was much stronger than her, and they both knew it. "What should I do about that, Mrs. Lovett? You always have the most charming notions…"

"A nice drop of ale," she babbled, "that's all you need to put you right! Just stay right here, love, and I'll be right back with—"

She disgusted him. "No ale," he growled, pushing her back on the bed. "Not this time." There was a clean sharp swish as he flicked out his favorite razor and held it to her throat. This was not the first time he had done so. Not daring to touch him, she grabbed the bedding with her hands, but couldn't seem to close her eyes. Those needy, pleading eyes, swirling murky with emotions he couldn't remember. Which only disgusted him more. Perhaps all he needed to rest was a little _more_ blood. This lovely, hideous woman so pathetic in her need to be needed…

The razor pressed against her throat as he sneered, and he was rewarded with that oh-so-familiar scarlet trickle—

Now she closed her eyes, and whimpered horribly. "Please no, Mr. Todd," she managed to whisper. "Oh please no. Not me."

It was the whisper, rather than the whimper—and the eyes. All the things he had forgotten versus all the things he _couldn't_ forget. Always and forever a slave to forces he barely understood and couldn't control, he felt himself breathing again. And leaning forward, razor still in hand, he felt himself kissing her mouth, roughly, clumsily. Despite everything, she still had the presence of mind to return the gesture—whimpering again, though not just in pain, he assumed. A real lady, Todd thought.

The kiss lengthened, and deepened, and Todd found himself leaning over her, his free hand in her hair, across her body, in her hand. He felt her rise and writhe agreeably against him, he felt her hand try to move the razor from her throat.

And he felt himself pulling back, and _laughing_, and keeping the blade right where it was.

He always knew she wanted this mechanical physical intimacy from him. Some sign of love. But he didn't love her. At least no kind of love he could ever remember feeling. He needed her. So badly, sometimes. She gave him whatever he wanted. He was grateful, in his way. He really was. And he hated her for it.

So instead of throwing aside the razor, he simply moved it, with the same determined delighted sneer. Todd moved it across her white clothes, her pale pasty body, freeing her from her clothes and leaving pretty little red trails all behind.

What followed was not what he remembered from before. And not, he hoped to God, what she had dreamed. He took her, harsh and quick and messy, against the formerly pristine sheets. And even then! She whispered soft nothings, obscene in their warmth.

There are so very many ways to hurt others. There are so very many ways to hurt yourself.

He had so much to learn, Todd did. It made him so weary sometimes.

"I'm so tired," he said, almost whimpering himself. And she understood, and he hated her for that too.

"Then sleep," she said. "My darling. And forget." She stroked his hair, and face, and he allowed her. She needed it from him. It was only fair. All that sound and pain had receded, and although the distasteful charade that was life would have to resume on the morrow—well, that was long from now. He owed her for that.

Sweeney Todd owed Mrs. Lovett so much, he knew.

He laughed again, softly before drifting into that sweet silent oblivion. Her eyes lit up at that. He wondered idly if they always had that cruel razor-glint gleam, or if they were only reflecting his own.

A/N—I can't write fics without these notes, I guess. Oh Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. There'll be another chapter of this from Mrs. Lovett's point of view. Which will totally happen, because I write SO much. Sigh. Whatever. But I'm kind of assuming they have sex because of this one line from "By the Sea" where she talks about wanting her rumpled bedding legitimized. Am I interpreting this wrong?

Don't flame. It's stupid. Take issue sure, with grammar, writing, characterization, whatever, but not logistics and not the OMG this would NEVER happen I KNOW because I know these characters PERSONALLY. All it does is make me grumpy, so, come on. I wish I didn't have to write this shit but it is evidently necessary.

If you're reading this fic, chances are you write Sweeney fic too, in which case you are incredible. I love this category.

Love, your charming and ever-faithful Dollfayce.


	2. Gleam

GLEAM

This is, at its bloody heart, a simple story.

After all, she was a simple practical woman, was Mrs. Lovett. She maybe wasn't the brightest, or the most beautiful, but she was practical. She knew what needed to be done and how. She knew how things worked.

For instance.

This is how razor cuts work: the initial caress, quick and bright and beautifully, beautifully clean. A gasp of a gash. Then the smallest silence—that delectable anticipation, then that softly swelling cacophony of red, and then all the pain. That is how they work. It could require a certain artistry.

Mrs. Lovett was no artist. Her experience with blades and blood was only the rather tiresome matter of scraping dead meat from dead bone and stick the whole mess into the rather humble meat pies she sold at her shop. One of hundreds in London. No, she was no artist. Although she was getting rather clever at the timely dismemberment of a human body, which is more than can be said for most ladies. She reflected on this, sometimes, on the extraordinarily rare instances she was in a pensive mood.

Mostly these moods would strike whenever cleaning took too long. All that dark copper to soak up, lit gleaming wet by just as rosy flames. All that gleaming blood.

This is how her conscience worked: everyone dies. Most do so pointlessly and wastefully, and as always the rest of the world turned on. Her poor Albert for example—pity, certainly, but life goes on. Mourning him hadn't done a bit of good. And these men—well, what with her Mr. Todd going on the way he did (not that she understood, but she knew he was always a dreamy sort of man, unconcerned with the banalities of everyday life) then she was merely picking up the pieces. Someone was going to have to. And might as well be her. That is, really, how her conscience worked. How her life had always worked.

Until him. Oh that phrase. But it was, as usual, the way these things went.

She had so much to be grateful for, from her Mr. Todd. All alone in the world, she was, what with her Albert gone and her not as young as she used to be. And London—her life—had become SO grey, in every sense. Then along came her Mr. Barker, only he wasn't the sweet absent thing she remembered. This new one, Mr. Todd, was an exercise in paradox. A cold white dead cipher of a man, but inside such crackling hot intensity. True, right now it was only the fires of rage and hate and loss and senseless pain that lit him so gleaming bright—but. All that can only sustain a man for so long. The pain could be excised, and left still all that fire. She never had felt things so very strongly herself, because she knew that how a person feels doesn't change a thing. But oh, Mr. Todd.

He was always burning all the time. So warm—his skin, his eyes, his very existence. She almost imagined she could partake of some of that herself—basking in his presence like a bonfire. He was the bright spot in her life.

And she loved him for it.

This is how love worked, for her. Beyond caring about the person in question, their well-being, etc., it was all about reciprocity. You looked out for each other. A relationship is a two-way street, after all. There was nothing ethereal or magic about it, it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. She had little patience for whatever ephemeral nonsense young people subscribed to. Love, to Mrs. Lovett, was a simple, practical matter. But very real.

She only ever wished Mr. Todd could be as straightforward about things. She knew he cared about her. Even if he didn't say as much, he would sometimes agree with her, or he would not reject her affection. True, if Mrs. Lovett left him alone long enough he'd sink into one of his _moods_, or start harping on and on again about revenge and death and his lost little brat and heaven knows what else, and she had to help him. Leave it to me, she'd say, and he would. That's what comforted her. He would be nothing without her. That was a kind of love she could understand.

So if Sweeney Todd only rarely showed her the type of appreciation or attention she felt she deserved, well, that was only because they were two different people who saw love and life two very different ways. She didn't let it trouble her.

And it wasn't as if he never…well. Expressed anything. There had been that one night, when he had come to her all blood-soaked and anxious, and she had set him right. She still had scars from that. Mrs. Lovett would smile when she caught sight of them, dressing in the morning. That night, too, had been just the beginning. They were quite the couple, near as Mrs. Lovett could tell.

This is how that first night had worked: it had been quick, and messy, and gorgeously painful. Mrs. Lovett hadn't quite understood why he came to her with razor in hand—and there was her tragedy.

This is how that next morning had worked: she had awoken first, to a distressing glimmer of pain all along her body where the razors had run. He still lay asleep beside her, his surprisingly delicate features not even peaceful at rest. Probably still dreaming of whichever wrong he was favoring at the moment, what happened years ago and nothing he could do about it now, she decided. Bless her Mr. Todd. Mrs. Lovett rose, only wincing a little. She couldn't help still but smile, even as she dabbed all the old black blood away, and carefully dressed. All silently, so as not to wake Mr. Todd. Everything would be different now.

This is practicality: that even after what was certainly an odd, draining, restless night, she was still up at dawn getting the dough started for the evening's pies, and making breakfast for herself and her two men. Mr. Todd wasn't a great eater, but Toby certainly was. And she was never a woman to let someone go wanting.

Toby would eventually wander into the kitchen, she knew, so she left a plate with food on it out for the boy. He'd be grateful she wasn't waiting in the kitchen with a list of chores. Instead, she prepared another plate for Mr. Todd, and brought it into her bedroom.

Mrs. Lovett sat on the side of the bed, next to the sleeping man. "Mr. Todd," she said quietly. "Wake up, love. I've brought you your breakfast." When he didn't stir, she sighed and repeated herself, this time stroking his face. "Wake up, love. Plenty to do today."

Now the man stirred, his mop of black hair falling into his face, making a quite pleasing contrast with his sickly porcelain skin. As least as far as Mrs. Lovett was concerned. His eyes fluttered open, then just as quickly closed. If he was breathing, it was the most shallow Mrs. Lovett had ever seen in someone still living.

She became alarmed. "Mr. Todd!" she cried. "You all right? Mr.—"

"I'm _awake_," he said softly, darkly. "I…" his face twisted, and he fell silent. She wondered, as usual, if he was ill. He seemed so loathe to even move, to live the new day.

Well, that's where she came in, wasn't it.

"Oh, Mr. Tee. We'll soon put you right," she said, and reached her hands round him so as to help him up. He was so gaunt. So white. Foolishly, sometimes she could just see herself breaking him. Foolishly. At her touch, it seemed an electric jolt had shot through his body. He sprang to life, grabbed the front of her dress harshly to pull himself up.

"Don't touch me," he growled, before releasing her. He then grimaced, and began rubbing his temples with his long fingers. Mrs. Lovett was surprised, but not overly disconcerted. She had seen enough of men to know when they were angry and when they just felt like having a bit of a pout. So all she did was smile, and not touch him again, and let him have a moment to gather his thoughts. When it seemed he had collected himself, she held out the plate of food that by some mercy, she hadn't already spilled on the both of them.

Not that it mattered. With that demon spark all red agleam in his eyes, that what she was seeing distressingly more of these days, he snarled and cursed and batted away the plate. Hot food was everywhere, burning everyone and ruining everything. Mrs. Lovett, placid and matter-of-fact as she usually was, was shocked, and cried out. Her Mr. Todd pushed her aside brutally as he rose and began to dress himself as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Lovett didn't understand. She had only been trying to help. As always. And she didn't understand—why, she had finally given him everything last night. Wasn't that what he wanted? If he didn't want her, why had he taken her? And not just in that way, but—

See. This is how razor cuts work: the initial caress, quick and bright and beautifully, beautifully clean. A gasp of a gash. Then the smallest silence—that delectable anticipation, then that softly swelling cacophony of red, and then all the pain. That is how they work. It could require a certain artistry.

And Sweeney Todd was nothing if not an artist. I will have you, he had claimed, and even if he was unaware of what he was saying or what he meant he would never stop cutting until—

The sad spoiled woman could only sit, wide-eyed and dumbfounded as the man finished dressing. Then something odd happened. Sweeney Todd, as if he had only just remembered she was there, glared at her with such hatred. Such fire, such intensity. But then those black eyes dulled, and he stooped to the floor to pick up the plate.

He held it to himself for a minute, and his eyebrows furrows, and it looked almost as if he was regretting something. If he was, he gave no further indication. Instead he approached his Mrs. Lovett, still sitting hilariously awash in devastation and a ruined breakfast. Tears were, as the phrase goes, gleaming in her eyes.

Slowly, he handed the plate to her. She took it, just as gently. Something unspoken passed between them, but still Mr. Todd felt compelled to speak.

"Oh, Mrs. Lovett. The things you do." He stretched his hand out as if to touch her, but thought better of it. Instead he left quietly. He would come to her again that night, late.

This is how sacrifice works. A person decides, for whatever reason, to give up something dear and important for someone or something else. Maybe even themselves. Mrs. Lovett gave herself up for her cold dour god. And even Cain's sacrifice, as it is said, was made in good faith. Tragically, she got something back. Comically, it was exactly what she expected.

This is, at its bloody heart, a simple love story.

A/N—Oh look. It's another dry character study ending in an act of oddly affectionate yet completely unwarranted act of cruelty. I'm not happy with this, so there's one more coming with like, plot, and dialogue, and crap like that. And it'll be short. Awesome.

Comme toujours, I love everyone who writes Sweeney fic. Please keep it up.


	3. Glimmer

GLIMMER

Mrs. Lovett brought him flowers, as she said she would.

"Daisies, Mrs. Lovett? Really," he groaned, and rubbed a frail white petal between his frail white fingers. The petal gave way, and he threw it aside. "Was this completely necessary?"

As always, his brow was dark and his mouth turned down, but the woman's heart thrilled. He had not only noticed the flowers, but he cared enough about it that he addressed the subject. It was so hard for her to get anything out him anymore.

(Not as much laughter as she remembered, and what there was of it was dark and cruel.)

"Now, Mr. Todd, I told you I was going to bring them," she said primly, adjusting them in their makeshift vase, and hiding the broken flower behind the others. "There now!" she said, taking a step back to join him. "Lookit how cheery they are. Isn't that just a treat?"

Todd muttered something, or maybe it was just a run-of-the-mill scoff, and stepped away from her to look out the window. "It won't matter when they're soaked with blood." He smiled, his pretty lips twisting slowly, at the thought. It was the first time he had smiled all day. He really was so predictable. "And you were worried this room needed—what was it? A splash of color." He couldn't help but turn when he said that, to enjoy her reaction.

(He had once loved flowers. Or someone else had. It was hard to remember.)

As always, she remained unruffled. Sometimes he wondered if he could ever really frighten her. Mrs. Lovett merely cocked an eyebrow, and let out a short bark of laughter. "Well, they isn't all blood-soaked yet, now, is they? So until then, you'll just have to enjoy them, in spite of yourself."

"Anything you say, Mrs. Lovett," he said.

"As you say, Mr. Todd," she said, and started to make her way out the door. "I'll have your dinner ready in an hour or so, if you'll be wanting to come down."

"Of course," he said coolly.

They both knew he wouldn't be down, and she'd be back up eventually, bringing him food and partaking of his company. For some reason, they both pretended otherwise. It wasn't their fault they knew each other so well.

(The love of my life.)

It is only possible, some say, to ever have one really great love in your life. To bind yourself completely to one person. Even if you love again, you know too much. About life. About love. About how things die. And it never really is the same.

(All we have is now.)

See, Benjamin Barker, of Fleet Street, had once had his Lucy. This was such young, pure, delirious, _simple_ love. She was his darling angel, he was her lovely gallant. Together they had a child, Johanna. Every time he went out, he would bring her flowers.

"For you, my love," he would say, giving her the posies or daisies or whatever had struck his fancy that evening. Since he always bought them late, in the violet twilight, they were never so fresh, or too alive. She couldn't care less.

"Oh, but you are too sweet!" she would say back, gently taking the splash of dying color with her hand. And they would both smile shyly, as if still made anxious by the presence of the other. As if it were too good to be true. As if they could blink, and it would all be gone.

(We were never meant to be a part of the future.)

Nellie Lovett, of Fleet Street, had once had her Albert. This was a comfortable, devoted, real love. In their shop was found laughter, often raucous, always loud. They were both people who heartily enjoyed the company of many people, but were content in each other. Maybe it was because of that, they had never had children. Every Sunday, she would make him his favorite meal, special for him.

"For you, lovey," she'd say, serving the meat pie. Her flyaway hair was just as dusted in flour as the rest of her, but he couldn't care less.

"What would I do without you, Nellie?" he'd ask gruffly, and give her a peck back before turning his attention completely to the pie. She would laugh, and say he'd surely die. As if with her, he'd live forever. As if nothing existed but good food, good drink, and each other, and they'd never have to worry about anything else.

(There was never any hope anyway.)

Our two heroes had lived together before, in calmest peace and the most eminently appropriate of neighborly affection.

What happened then was that everything was taken from them anyway, either by cruel men or a cruel God or both. To be perfectly frank, they both had a good laugh in secret about it. It really was too funny. To be even more honest, their old selves never would have seen the humor.

Things change. More importantly, people change. They die. That inescapable dance to dust.

Benjamin Barker killed, buried, and resurrected himself as a new man—for this he remains unpersecuted. Gone was the soft warmth, of eyes and hair and smile, replaced by diamond black and a frozen sneer, and all the red inside. Instead of Benjamin Barker stood Sweeney Todd.

A new man, a new life.

Nellie Lovett was more passive—a victimless crime, striking her unawares. No longer was she the soft plump sweet thing she had been before. She found herself a widow, with harder lines and sharper angles. She had to add externally the color her complexion had always had before. Red, white, smoke. And now no one called her Nellie. She was Mrs. Lovett now.

A new woman.

And now our two new heroes lived together. Again, if things are kept simple, or for the first time if honesty is coming into play. These ones lived in relative peace, and maybe not the most appropriate of neighborly affection—but certainly they had an arrangement that mostly pleased them.

Sweeney Todd would live with her, and keep her company against that long night, and provide all the ingredients he could ever want. Mrs. Lovett would keep him safe, from everyone and everything. Even himself.

It was possible that they didn't share everything as they had before, with others, because they were both surprised when Todd found his way down to the kitchen for early dinner that night.

He smiled wanly when she gave a little squeal of delight.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Mrs. Lovett.," he said. "It's only me."

(Benjamin Barker.)

She finished rolling the dough of this batch of pies with a decisive thump of the rolling pin, before putting the finishing touches on a lonely few to the side. "And who says you ain't a ghost, Mr. Tee? What with how little you eat. Nearly scared the life out of me yourself!"

(Nellie.)

There was a silence between them, which Todd broke. "And what," he said, nodding to the pies she was pinching together the crust on, "is that?"

She laughed. "Oh, I'm afraid it's nothing so exciting, these ones being for you and me and Toby. Had to stick to the more, ah, commonplace, you see, save all the high-class stuff for the customers."

He grimaced. "I can't imagine. You needn't bother, though, I meant to tell you I wasn't having any dinner tonight after all."

"Oh, it's just chicken, you silly thing!" she cried, laughing harder, which even got a chuckle out of him.

"Of course," he said.

"As if I'd have us _respectable_ people eating that, what with us having a bit of spare cash these days!" She wiped her eyes. "All right then, if you're down here you have to help." She picked up a pan and motioned for him to do the same. He obeyed, gingerly, after appearing to give it some thought.

"Right then," she said briskly. "Down to the bakehouse! Just follow me, there's a good man."

Once in the bakehouse—or charnel house, mausoleum, whatever word seems to suit best—the woman had Todd open the heavy oven door. She showed him how to place the pies in just right, and he followed instruction carefully, almost solemnly.

When he stepped back, she couldn't bring herself yet to close the door. There was just something—unsettling, about the flames dancing feverish in the hollows of his cheeks and lighting his eyes from the inside. Bleeding rubies, not hard-edged diamonds. Todd misinterpreted her hesitation as a signal for him to take charge, so he reached past her and closed it himself.

"Thank you," she said weakly. "And those'll be done in just two shakes, Mr. Tee, never you worry. Best dinner you've had in a while, if you can bring yourself to choke it down. Yes," she goes on, oddly. "Leave it to me. Don't you worry."

(They pretend, but there was never even a _glimmer_ of hope.)

Todd wondered what had come over her. "I'm not worried," he said. "I trust you, Mrs. Lovett." He smiles, rather too self-consciously, and he is lying, because it dawns on him they are probably talking about something else.

"Well," she said. "It'll all come out all right, love." She doesn't believe it, he can tell. At least not completely. If she's being honest. She smiles, as wan and meaningless as he's ever managed, and pats his shoulder awkwardly.

Impulsively, he put his hand on hers. Then he pulls her close and whispers darkly in her ear. "I have no doubt, my pet. No doubt at all." He let her go, and pulled back.

He doesn't believe it for a moment either. Even they're only marginally aware of the fact, they can tell this new life is quickly drawing to a close. It just logically could not go on for ever. They're locked into a track, a path, that leads to only one place. Their vicious circle. Their triumph of inevitability.

(To die will be…)

So Sweeney Todd looks Nellie Lovett in the eyes, her skin warm and bright from the light of the very bake oven, all fire and flame, that will be her end. And Nellie Lovett looks back at Sweeney Todd, his hand as ever nervously, unconsciously at his side near the very lovely silver razor, all ice and chill, that will be his end.

They share a kiss, maybe more. The food, the flowers, the fire, the blood. It was everything they had before and yet so different. So twisted.

(Like themselves.)

Sweeney Todd was the love of Mrs. Lovett's life. Mrs. Lovett was the one love of Sweeney Todd's life. And they would be each other's end.

It was only fitting. After all, it was nothing that hasn't happened before.

A/N: And there we go! I'm like ninety percent sure that's a wrap, but I thought that about the first chapter, so we'll see. Congratulations are in order, this is the first story I've ever continued past a single chapter. Hooray!

Sweeney is slightly different in this chapter, mainly cause I started listening to the original cast whatever and Sweeney just seemed so much more—well, getting at least a marginal amount of enjoyment out of life. He would laugh, he would joke, he'd shout, etc. Now I love my psychopath movie Sweeney best, although for any purists out there of course I know it's not the original, etc., but I thought he could use a sense of humor.

Sort of.

Love you all, and please review, cause guess what, it's the only thing that makes me happy in this dark winter of finishing my GE's.


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